Webley Mark II need some advice

Some British officers may have brought home government-issued revolvers, but usually the guns they brought home were their own. For many years, it was assumed that an officer would buy his whole "kit", which included his own handgun and sword, as well as his "bespoke" (custom tailored) uniform, boots, and other personal articles. It was not until WWI, when huge losses of junior officers left no choice but to allow the lower classes to enter the officer corps, that officers, like enlisted men, were issued a full kit at government expense and sidearms were expected to be turned in on discharge (if the poor guy survived that lone!).

Jim
 
You would need a .455 seater die of some kind. An old Lyman .45acp die MIGHT work, I don't know. If not, then metal could be removed from the bottom of the die so it would work. The .45acp case specs 0.898" the .455 Webley is 0.77".

I have a 1970s era Lyman .45acp seater die, and at that time they still had a roll crimp built in If you can't find a .45acp die with a roll crimp, you could use any .45 Colt seater die, you'd just have to shorten the die body more.
Click to expand...

I use a combination of .45 Colt & .45 ACP dies to load this round (since I already had them on hand).
I found that the seating stem on my Lee dies wouldn't screw in deep enough to fully seat the bullets in the .455 Webley. I don't know about other makes, but Lee's seater die is a two piece affair, and the bottom piece can be flipped around to better fit either flat point or round nosed bullets. I simply stuck a spacer in between the two parts- just dug through the junk drawer until I found a piece of brass about the right size, and this took up enough room to allow the die to work for these rounds.

Remington makes soft lead .455 bullets with a semi hollow base, and these seemed to work well enough to prevent blow-by leading. https://www.midwayusa.com/Product/1601446981/remington-bullets-45-colt-long-colt-455-diameter-250-grain-lead-round-nose

I made my brass by cutting down .45 Colt. The rims on Webley rounds should be a little thinner, but there was just enough room in my gun that I didn't have to mess with 'em. I filed down a steel rod in my drill press until it would fit snugly inside the .45 Colt casings, and then used a small pipe cutter to trim the brass. This way the casing would have some support & wouldn't end up with a severely crimped mouth from cutting this way.

Then I discovered that I could just chuck the rod in my drill press, slip a casing over it, tighten the pipe cutter on the case, and turn on the drill press for just a second & quickly switch it off again. It may sound complicated, but I could keep up a steady tempo this way & trim cases in just a few seconds apiece.
 
Thanks Mike for the answer on having chrome removed. I didn't want to hijack the thread but................

I have a Luger that was chromed. I wouldn't care except it it starting to rust under the chrome. I have thought about trying to have the chrome removed and just have it blued or something to try to stop the rust.
 
First, I see a need to understand what happens when a gun like a revolver is plated. First, the gun is polished, just as it wold be for re-bluing. Then it is plated in the normal manner. But the plating adds thickness to the plated part, so if the tolerances are close, the plating may prevent the parts from fitting. As a good example, S&W side plates are very closely fitted; If the person doing the polishing is an expert, he will allow for that. A person less than expert might well let the side plate be plated and then re-install it with a heavy hammer.

Companies that specialize in plating guns can do an excellent job. The local bumper shop, not so much, but they will be a lot cheaper.

Jim
 
The Webleys are smooth shooters, long out of production. I had a .38 and sold it. Just waiting for a part to break is no fun, and I flipped it for a large profit.
 
In fairness, the Webley revolvers were/are about as reliable as any handgun ever made. We base our concern about flat springs mostly on "junk" guns of the suicide special variety, made to a price and sold with little or no concern for quality or durability. But in reality, flat springs can be excellent if made right. One example is the flat mainspring (hammer spring) of most full size S&W revolvers; I can't say they never break, but I have never seen one broken in normal use.

Jim
 
The only flat spring I ever had break was on my S&W Regulation Police I frame .32 Long.

Picked it up one day (hadn't shot it in quite some time) and it rattled. Spring snapped right at the strain screw.

Only took it 92 years to do so.
 
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